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Lipatti was a *phenomenal* pianist and musician. His Chopin Barcarolle is magnificent, as is his b-minor Sonata. I believe it was Stephen Hough who said that his recording of the Ravel Alborada del Gracioso (from Miroirs) was the greatest five minutes of recorded piano playing ever, or something to that effect. His Liszt Petrarch Sonnet 104 is, for me, untouchable (and I include Horowitz in the also-rans).
Lipatti studied with Cortot.
He became seriously ill in his early 30s. I believe Igor Stravinsky and Wilhelm Backhaus donated money to try to save him. Hodgkins Disease, an illness that is very manageable now took him at 33.
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The two pianists that come to mind that I love sharing with people are Mark Markham and Raoul Koczalski.
Raoul's recording of Chopin's Ballade #4 is astounding! He is one of the true heirs to Chopin.
https://youtu.be/sOHg33Shwl8?si=6YQ4IxRK1zeMgV5t
Mark has been a dear friend of mine for many years. He served as the collaborative pianist to the legendary American soprano, Jessye Norman for two decades. After Norman died unexpectedly in 2019, Mark started playing for other prominent singers like J'Nai Bridges (mezzo) and Limmie Pulliam (tenor), but he also started playing more and more solo concerts. The one I will share here is particularly astonishing because he was actually supposed to play a shared concert with the tenor Limmie P, but Limmie fell ill just an hour before the concert, and the concert organizers asked Mark to play an impromptu solo recital to salvage the day. Mark didn't have any music with him and had not prepared for this moment. Quite remarkably, he dove deep into his memory and proceeded to play a magnificent solo concert and even communicated with the audience making for an illuminating and very gratifying afternoon. His solo recitals are always elegantly and beautifully performed so I encourage others to go down the rabbit hole on Youtube seeking out his performances both as a soloist not to mention his performances with the great Jessye Norman. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/live/F00XwTZqRK0?si=Cxd6U0pv9kJRp3ZN
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Piotr Anderszewski (won the Gilmore award in 2002) is a musician's musician and though he has an established concert career doesn't seem terribly well known here (possibly he's more famous in Europe). I heard him live at Carnegie Hall in 2008 and wrote my impressions: https://wwwmiscellaneousmusings.blogspot.com/search?q=piotr+anderszewski
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I only know Lipatti from his recordings, but those are head and shoulders above any other pianist's performances of the same pieces. Chopin's Barcarolle and Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso in particular are extraordinary.
Mieczysław Horszowski is another pianist that I rate very highly. I twice heard him play at the Wigmore Hall in London. The first time was the 80th anniversary of his Wigmore debut, and the second was to celebrate his 99th birthday. Radu Lupu, Andras Schiff and Murray Perahia were in the audience. It was amazing enough that at 99 he could still play the piano, but even more so that he could play better than almost everybody else. He had a way of dissecting the music and putting it together again so that it was absolutely clear how it worked (I have heard something similar in the conducting of Benjamin Britten and Simon Rattle).I have heard Sviatoslav Richter a few times live, and he was another stunning pianist. His recording of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto puts others in the shade.
Shura Cherkassky had an extraordinary way of playing the piano and made it sound like nobody else.
Glenn Gould, although highly eccentric in his performances, as in his life, is another pianist that I would never like to be without. Every time I listen to his recordings I hear something new in the music that nobody else has brought out. His Bach is decidedly better than his Chopin, however, and he seems to have been completely unable to sustain the Larghetto of Chopin's first piano sonata.
The more I think about it the more pianists come to mind, so I shal stop now.
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I forgot two pianists who are exquisite musicians but never attained the heights of popularity many others did: Ivan Moravec (to whom I was introduced by a Czech scientist) and Janina Fialkowska, whom I stumbled across because of this YouTube channel that compares recordings of (mostly living) pianists playing the same pieces side by side, with intelligent commentary by the owner of the channel, Ashish Xiangyi Kumar. Fialkowska's Chopin etudes are a revelation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0hoN6_HDVU&t=1356s